PI: Professor Kaosar Afsana, BRAC JPGSPH.
Other Researchers: Professor Malay Kant Mridha, Director, CNCDN, BRAC JPGSPH; Saira Parveen Jolly, Senior Research Fellow, BRAC JPGSPH; Abu Mohammad Shamim, Associate Scientst; Fahmida Akter, Senior Research Fellow, BRAC JPGSPH; Barnali Chakraborty, Assistant Scientst, BRAC JPGSPH.

Objective: The study aims to develop integrated nutrition messages for school children, (pre-primary to grade 10) using the cover pages of the school textbooks.

Timeline: August 2020 - December 2020

Donor: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

PI: Professor Malay Kant Mridha, Director, CNCDN, BRAC JPGSPH.
Co-PI: Professor Malabika Sarker, Associate Dean and Director, CoE-SISU, BRAC JPGSPH.
Coordinator: Abu Abdullah Mohammad Hanif, Senior Research Fellow, BRAC JPGSPH.

Objective: A mixed-method study to develop and evaluate digital platforms for training and care-coordination by the primary health care team in Bangladesh; and to improve prevention and control of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and Cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Timeline: September 2019 - September 2021

Donor: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK.

Partners: Imperial College London, UK; Non-Communicable Disease Control, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; BRAC.

Maintaining a disease registry may have an immense potential for managing non-communicable diseases (NCD). The development of a population-based cancer registry is one of the priorities of the NCD operational plan of the government of Bangladesh. The Centre for Non-communicable diseases and nutrition (CNCDN), BRAC JPGSPH, has started a population-based NCD registry in the Parbatipur sub-district of Dinajpur. A team of trained Research Assistants is collecting detailed membership information of the households from the catchment area of one randomly selected community clinic in each of the 10 unions of Parbatipur sub-district and one of the randomly selected wards of the Parbatipur municipality area. The team has collected information on self-reported NCDs from the 18+ members of the households of the selected study sites.

Till date, we have listed 14,159 households with 19,147 males and 18,778 females age 18 years and above from 9 unions and 1 ward of the Parbatipur municipality area. According to the data collected in this study, 10.3% of the population aged 18+ reported hypertension (excluding gestational hypertension), 3.8% reported diabetes (excluding gestational diabetes), 4.0% reported heart attack or any other diseases of heart, 4.1% reported chronic respiratory problems and 1.2% reported a kidney disease. With such a lower prevalence of self-reported NCDs in this community compared to the national prevalence, this pilot study indicates a massive burden of unreported NCD cases in Bangladesh. Therefore, population-based screening for NCDs is an urgent need.

Centre for Non-communicable Diseases and Nutrition (CNCDN) has been providing training on the package of essential NCD interventions to the primary health care providers of the Cox's Bazar district since 2019. In November-December 2021, we implemented the third phase of the training and arranged supportive supervision to the primary health care facilities with the previously trained health care providers to implement PEN intervention and improve screening and sensitization of NCD risk factors. We also facilitated the formation of an NCD coordination committee in Cox's Bazar district with the Civil Surgeon of Cox's Bazar as the Chairperson. On November 24, we organized a consultation meeting on the package of essential NCD interventions for Primary Health Care providers at Hotel Sea Palace, Cox's Bazar, in collaboration with the Noncommunicable Disease Control Program, Office of the Civil Surgeon, and the World Health Organization. Professor Robed Amin, Line Director of NCDC, was the chief guest of the meeting. Professor Malay Kanti Mridha, Director-CNCDN, provided the keynote speech on the 'Overview of implementation of Package of Essential Non-communicable disease (PEN) interventions in Cox's Bazar District'. Dr. Md. Mahbubur Rahman, Civil Surgeon of Cox's Bazar presided over the meeting. Among others, Dr. Abdul Alim, Program Manager, NCDC, DGHS, Dr. Sarowar Uddin Milon, DPM, NCDC, DGHS, Md. Khairul Islam, Field Coordinator-Operations, MOHFW Coordination Centre, Dr. Abu Toha MRH Bhuiyan, Health Coordinator, RRRC, Dr. Kai Von Harbou, Head of WHO Sub-office, Cox's Bazar, was were present in the meeting. Dr. Raisul Islam, Non-Communicable Disease Officer, WHO Bangladesh, moderated the meeting.

Updates from January-March 2022

On 4 June 2022, the Centre for Non-communicable Diseases and Nutrition (CNCDN) at BRAC JPGSPH, in collaboration with the Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC), Institute of Nutrition and Food Science of the University of Dhaka, and UNICEF Bangladesh, started data collection of a study titled “Assessment of the nutrition status and pre-COVID-19 and two years into the pandemic comparison”. The study, which is funded by UNICEF Bangladesh, will be conducted in 60 randomly selected clusters from all 8 divisions of Bangladesh. Data will be collected from 3720 under-5 children and their mothers, 3720 adolescent girls, and all the respective household heads selected from a sampling frame constructed from a household listing. A total of 10 teams, each comprising 1 Field Coordinator and 4 to 5 Research Assistants, have been deployed for listing household members, interviews, and anthropometric measurements. The objectives of the study are to assess household socio-economic status, food security, and water, sanitation, and hygiene practices, feeding practices of <5 years old children and dietary diversity of adolescent girls, nutritional status through anthropometric measurement, which will give us the opportunity to compare selected nutrition indicators between pre- and >2 years into the Covid-19 pandemic. It is noteworthy that the CNCDN team of the BRAC JPGSPH, in collaboration with the National Nutrition Services (NNS) established 90 sentinel sites to initiate a national nutrition surveillance system and collected data on a similar set of nutrition and health indicators from several age groups, including the children aged <5 years and adolescent girls. We hope that the findings will help the government and development agencies adequately plan interventions and resources to recover and support optimal nutrition now and into the future.